Post your questions here for Part Three of "The Pacific" airing Sunday, March 28 at 9:00pm, only on HBO.

Hello Bruce
There has already been some discussion on deleted scenes resulting in shortened episodes and a somewhat fractured storyline. Will we get these deleted scenes on the DVD?
What other goodies can we expect on the DVD?
With thanks :)

Can you explain to us why you used Stella as opposed to Leckie's real experiences? I know that a lot needs to get condensed to fit into a single hour but I was curious about why the family was Greek and some of the other plot twists (the break-up) that are examples of what happened to Marines, just not necessarily Leckie.

Hey Simon --

There have been some scenes cut from episodes, but not for any other reasons than they didn't work in the context of the entire episode. I'm not sure you will see them in the DVD. You will see tons of new stuff in the DVDs, however. Lots of historical context. Interviews with many of the veterans or comrades of the vets. And the blu ray makes it fantastic.

Hey Patton --

You're right that this episode diverges the most from the facts of Leckie's book. The primary reason is that we only had fifty minutes to dramatize close to NINE months of time. Should we focus on the debauch? On the one relationship that he had that seemed serious? His growing drunken escapades? His dalliances? His time in the Brig? We decided to focus on one of Leckie's relationships to push the theme that despite all the women and wine and relaxation in Melbourne, the men still couldn't go home again. We picked a Greek family because we wanted to show that the War was indeed a world war and its victims were from all over the world. Melbourne had a very large Greek community. And we focused on the breakup to illuminate a central truth of men at war: that their relationships (family members, lovers) are absolutely crucial to them. And when those relationships are severed, the men are devastated. Leckie came out of Melbourne in many ways more cynical and damaged than when he went in. We needed a way to dramatize that so that his continuing descent into moral and psychological hell would make sense in Eps. 4 and 5.

Thanks for the prompt response. I can't wait for the next episode (or the DVDs now, for that matter).

Any chance we ever get extra scenes from Band of Brothers or additional portions of the vet interviews? I would definitely buy another set of DVDs for that. Sorry to go off topic . . .

Hi Bruce, I'm enjoying the series immensely so far (despite naysayers who insist on comparing it to BOB). My question is if there was ever any thought to presenting the Melbourne scenes as parts of an episode, instead of devoting an entire episode to it? Personally I liked it this way, but it seems that maybe it's been harder to condense everything in the Pacific theater into 10 episodes than it was for BOB.

Thanks again for a great series.

Jay --

Thanks. I'm glad you like it. Remind those naysayers that they're judging us on only a few episodes, while Band is viewed through the prism of the last ten years. I think when it's all said and done The Pacific will hold its own. There was some thought about condensing Melbourne and including other aspects of the Pacific Campaign in the same episode. But we felt that the men trying to reestablish their humanity was a good idea after Guadalcanal, especially as the next six episodes are pretty damn brutal, combat wise. The respite is needed and we learn an enormous amount about Robert Leckie that will pay off in episodes to come. And yes it was the hardest part of the Series to condense to Ten Hours. It's one of the reasons it took so long to bring the Series to fruition. We originally had 13 episodes (I have the three "Secret" episodes on my computer...Maybe some day they'll be posted), but needed to cut the story down to Ten to make sure our narrative had cohesiveness and drive.

Thank you for answering my question Bruce. I think it's great you're taking the time to do this.

Back when I watched BOB, I had to wait until the DVDs came out, but the benefit to that was that I could watch as many episodes as I wanted as fast as I wanted to. This having to wait until the following Sunday to see the next episode is hard LOL.

Hopefully I will get a chance to ask you more questions as the series moves on.

Hey Mr McKenna.

In relevance to SimpleSimon's post about deleted scenes, were any scenes shot of Mitchell Paige, Colonel Merrit A. Edson and General Alexander Vandegrift receiving the Medal of Honor in the ceremony with Basilone at the MCG that didn't make it into the cut? I would definitely love to see those on BluRay.

For the 13 episodes that you envisaged to be shot, were they based on the stories of the three characters in the series now or the two others characters from Flyboys that I think were mentioned in Hugh Ambrose's book?

Thank you. I think it's awesome that you're spending your time to answer all of our questions.

G'Day Bruce,

As a 60 year resident of Melbourne, and not having actually seen the series as yet, I wonder if you can fill me in on where you went and where you shot the various scenes.

Melbourne has changed a bit since 1943, and the Balcombe Army Camp at Mt Martha is now an up-market housing estate, as i am sure you are aware.

I have been talking about the series on a couple of Forums and it seems to have caused a LOT of interest, Some even know where Melbourne is, (NOT in Florida!)

LOVED the USA, been there 3 times so far, mainly across the South on I.10, and up the east coast to NYC.

Ozjohn.

Divine --

Yes, indeed, we shot all of the MOH winners together. For some reason (beyond my control), they cut Edson, Vandegrift and Paige out of the shot. Sigh.

As for the 13 episode version, it included the three main characters plus only one from Bradley's Flyboys (Floyd Hall), and an additional aviator, Bob Elder, who flew at the battle of Midway among other places.

Welcome Ozjohn!

We shot in various places around Melbourne for Ep three. The Sledge house was filmed outsdide of town. We used the same area for Ep ten. And, as you can tell, we shut down Flinders street to film the street car scenes. The entire city was so gracious to us; I loved Melbourne.

Hope you enjoy the rest of the show.

BCM

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